blades came down, and a moment later, Aidan’s face was splattered in blood as they chopped off his father’s head.
“NO!” Aidan shrieked, feeling his own life collapse within him, feeling himself sinking into a black hole.
Aidan woke with a start, gasping, covered in a cold sweat. He sat up in the darkness, struggling to realize where he was.
“Father!” Aidan yelled, still half asleep, looking for him, still feeling an urgency to save him.
He looked all around, felt something in his face and hair, all over his body, and realized it was hard to breathe. He reached out, pulled something light and long off his face, and he realized he was lying in a pile of hay, nearly buried in it. He quickly brushed it all off as he sat up.
It was dark in here, only the faint flicker of a torch appearing through slats, and he soon realized he was lying in the back of a wagon. Beside him came a rustling, and he looked over and saw with relief that it was White. The huge dog jumped up in the wagon beside him and licked his face, while Aidan hugged him back.
Aidan breathed hard, still overwhelmed by the dream. It had seemed too real. Had his father really been killed? He tried to think back to when he had last seen him, in the royal courtyard, ambushed, surrounded. He recalled trying to help, and then being whisked away by Motley in the thick of night. He recalled Motley putting him on this wagon, their riding through the backstreets of Andros to get away.
That explained the wagon. But where had they gone? Where had Motley taken him?
A door opened, and a sliver of torchlight lit up the dark room. Aidan was finally able to see where he was: a small stone room, the ceiling low and arched, looking like a small cottage or tavern. He looked up to see Motley standing in the doorway, framed in the torchlight.
“Keep yelling like that and the Pandesians will find us,” Motley warned.
Motley turned and walked out, returning to the well-lit room in the distance, and Aidan quickly hopped down from the wagon and followed, White at his side. As Aidan entered the bright room, Motley quickly closed the thick oak door behind him and bolted it several times.
Aidan looked out, eyes adjusting to the light, and recognized familiar faces: Motley’s friends. The actors. All those entertainers from the road. They were all here, all hiding away, boarded up in this windowless, stone pub. All the faces, once so festive, were now grim, somber.
“Pandesians are everywhere,” Motley said to Aidan. “Keep your voice down.”
Aidan, embarrassed, hadn’t even realized he was shouting.
“Sorry,” he said. “I had a nightmare.”
“We all have nightmares,” Motley replied.
“We’re living in one,” added another actor, his face glum.
“Where are we?” Aidan asked, looking around, puzzled.
“A tavern,” Motley replied, “at the farthest corner of Andros. We are still in the capital, hiding out. The Pandesians patrol outside. They’ve walked by several times, but they haven’t come in—and they won’t, as long as you keep quiet. We’re safe here.”
“For now,” called out one of his friends, skeptical.
Aidan, feeling an urgency to help his father, tried to remember.
“My father,” he said. “Is he…dead?”
Motley shook his head.
“I don’t know. He was taken. That was the last I saw him.”
Aidan felt a flush of resentment.
“You took me away!” he said angrily. “You shouldn’t have. I would have helped him!”
Motley rubbed his chin.
“And how would you have managed that?”
Aidan shrugged, wracking his brain.
“I don’t know,” he replied. “Somehow.”
Motley nodded.
“You would have tried,” he agreed. “And you would be dead now, too.”
“Is he dead then?” Aidan asked, feeling his heart wrench within him.
Motley shrugged.
“Not when we left,” Motley said. “I just do not know now. We have no friends, no spies, in the city anymore—it has been overtaken by Pandesians. All your father’s men are imprisoned. We are, I’m afraid, at Pandesia’s mercy.”
Aidan clenched his fists, thinking only of his father rotting in that cell.
“I must save him,” Aidan declared, filled with a sense of purpose. “I cannot let him sit there. I must leave this place at once.”
Aidan jumped up and hurried to the door and had started pulling back the bolts when Motley appeared, stood over him, and stuck his foot before the door before he could open it.
“Go now,” Motley said, “and you’ll get us all killed.”
Aidan looked back at Motley, saw a serious expression for the first time, and he knew he was right. He had a new sense of gratitude and respect for him; after all, he had indeed saved his life. Aidan would always be grateful for that. Yet at the same time, he felt a burning desire to rescue his father, and he knew that every second counted.
“You said there would be another way,” Aidan said, remembering. “That there would be another way to save him.”
Motley nodded.
“I did,” Motley admitted.
“Were those just empty words, then?” Aidan asked.
Motley sighed.
“What do you propose?” he asked, exasperated. “Your father sits in the heart of the capital, in the royal dungeon, guarded by the entire Pandesian army. Shall we just go and knock on the door?”
Aidan stood there, trying to think of anything. He knew it was a daunting task.
“There must be men who can help us?” Aidan asked.
“Who?” called out one of the actors. “All those men loyal to your father were captured along with him.”
“Not all,” Aidan replied. “Surely some of his men were not there. What about the warlords loyal to him outside the capital?”
“Perhaps.” Motley shrugged. “But where are they now?”
Aidan fumed, desperate, feeling his father’s imprisonment as if it were his own.
“We can’t just sit here and do nothing,” Aidan exclaimed. “If you don’t help me, I will go myself. I don’t care if I die. I cannot just sit here while my father’s in prison. And my brothers…” Aidan said, remembering, and he began to cry, overcome with emotion, as he recalled his two brothers’ deaths.
“I have no one now,”
